(rshsdepot) Johnson City, NC

["J. Henry Priebe Jr." <root_@_bluemoon.net>]

Foreclosure catches up with Johnson City's railroad depot

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9014541

Thanks to Alco83 on the railfan.net forum for the heads up.

Henry

J. Henry Priebe Jr.    Blue Moon Internet Corp Network Administrator
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Foreclosure catches up with Johnson City's railroad depot

By  JEFF KEELING

Published June 15th, 2009

The SOS call in 2002 was for Johnson City to Save Our Station, and
that's what Dorian Jones ended up doing with the former Carolina,
Clinchfield and Ohio railroad depot at the corner of Buffalo and
Cherry streets.

But if the century-old building is going to move from its still
threatened condition to a renovated, usable state, someone other than
Jones will oversee it -- the property is being foreclosed on and will
be sold at auction June 23.

Despite getting the property for free in a December 2003 quit claim
deed, Jones has seen debts mount on the building -- which nearly fell
to the wrecking ball early in this decade -- since borrowing nearly
$500,000 against the property in early 2008.

Leaders at the Johnson City Development Authority see the pending
change as an opportunity to progress with renovations, potentially
using a combination of private and grant money. They'd like to see the
building become the site either of a railroad museum and public
offices, or a privately operated business -- but either way they're
hoping to see completion of a historic renovation that began with
Jones.

One of those JCDA members, Craig Torbett, was active in 2002 and said
the JCDA came close to getting the property itself in order to keep it
from being demolished. The railroad company was simply leasing the
land under the building it owned, though, and concerns that the land
could revert to Tipton Jobe's heirs caused the JCDA to balk.

Torbett said Jones did a great deal of legwork after getting the
building, contacting all the Jobe family heirs through an attorney,
and that the property now belongs to him. That should make it easier
for a buyer to confidently redevelop the property, and Torbett said
the JCDA is intent on seeing that happen.

I think it's the most prominent historic structure that's on the
table for development, Torbett said.

JCDA's David Tomita agreed.

It's the last one that hasn't been torn down, Tomita added. You've
lost the old train station, the Majestic Theater -- this is our last
chance.

For his part, Jones is washing his hands of Johnson City, where he's
spent more than a decade buying and working on a handful of downtown
buildings. He's wrangled with the city government over numerous
issues, including whether to allow a recreational trail from East
Tennessee State University to downtown -- along the former CSX tracks
to pass by the depot.

Jones said the city's decision to pull up the former CSX tracks last
year to prepare for the trail, instead of trying to renovate the
tracks for continued rail use -- was an example of what he sees as a
less-than-ethical leadership approach.

The corruption here is rampant, he said. The people here don't give
a (darn)... there are cities that are enlightened. This is not one.

Jones said he simply wanted to save the station and get it open for
some kind of public use -- JCDA members give him credit for shoring up
a roof that was near collapse -- but that too many things beyond his
control stood in the way.

From day one, the City made this impossible. I tried. I couldn't get
permits, I couldn't get this, I couldn't get that, until seven months
ago, when it was too late, was I finally able to start pulling
permits.

Jones got the station and attached freight house in December 2003, 20
years after the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina railroad sold
it, along with miles of track, to the East Tennessee Railway
Corporation.

He has spent the last several years working to renovate it to original
specifications, and it was the cost of this work that landed the site
in foreclosure. Jones borrowed $492,800 from Interbay Funding, a Fort
Washington, Pa., company, putting the building and its internal
fixtures up as collateral.

Jones has had the building on the market at $495,000 -- it includes
11,000 square feet in the two-story station house and another 6,000 in
the freight house -- for some time now. The JCDA approached him a
number of months ago, but couldn't agree to a price.

Jones also owns the former Honey Krust bakery building across Buffalo
at 221 Cherry, and said last week he was walking away from that
building as well as he prepares to move to Asheville, N.C. That
90-year-old building, for which Jones has been asking $575,000, comes
with a quarter-acre parking lot.

JCDA's Tomita said he plans to be at the auction, scheduled for 11
a.m. at the Washington County Courthouse in Jonesborough,
and making sure any prospective buyers know who we are and what we do.

That's because JCDA Executive Director Suzanne Kuehn has outlined an
array of grant and loan opportunities, several exceeding $200,000,
that could aid prospective buyers in the station's redevelopment.

Torbett said purchase by the JCDA or another public entity should be a
last resort.

JCDA's role should always be to get it into private hands, Torbett
said. If that happens without JCDA involvement and just our support,
that's the ideal outcome. If it takes more than that hopefully we
would at least consider a more hands-on role.


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railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
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